Yesterday too was Father’s Day.
Yesterday too was Father’s Day and even the day before that. It is Father’s Day every day. Everyday, I see you, eyes gleaming, hat tilted to one side, an impish smile on your face. What elegance! What grace!
Every day
I see you stooped on your writing table,
evaluating answer sheets.
Every day
I hear your powerful baritone, quoting Shelley and Keats.
Whenever I pass the English Department of Rajasthan University, Jaipur,
through blurred eyes, I see your silhouette in your favorite pinstripe suit,
standing on the stairs with an armful of books,
looking here and there. Perhaps awaiting a lift?
But, didn’t you own that smart bicycle that you loved to flaunt?
Maybe it had a flat tyre that day?
Everyday-
no, not every day,
somedays,
I open my precious box,
and daintily pick up your last letter addressed to me
in your artistic handwriting-
Yes, you were an artist too- an unsung one.
A cartoonist, a poet, and a novelist too,
but alas, everything was incomplete,
when you left us bereft one cruel day in June.
They say, in your last moments you asked for me-
As you breathed your last in Kashmir,
an uncanny shudder went through me, in Jaipur.
Tears cascaded down my cheeks,
Inadvertent words slipped through my lips,
“I miss you, Papa. “
In your last moments, you had missed me,
but I miss you every day.
Every day is a day of missing you. ,
recalling your sense of humor, your infectious laughter.,
I still find myself running after you
for more of your lectures on Monet,
Vincent Van Gogh. and Salvador Dali.
For more of Browning.
For more of you-
till we meet once again
in that hitherto unknown rendezvous.
Internationally acclaimed for her poetic biography of Mahatma Gandhi, Ballad of Bapu, Santosh Bakaya, ph.D is a poet, novelist, editor,biographer and Tedx speaker with 28 books across different genres. Author can be mailed at [email protected]
